Q&A With Rebecca Dayan

Following Tali Lennox's successful debut, the latest artist-in-residence at the Catherine Ahnell Gallery in New York City is Rebecca Dayan. The triple threat—actress, model, artist—debuted her "Assumption" exhibit last night to a crowd of NYC It kids. The range of watercolors of Dayan's "powerful" friends explores the theme of the word 'virgin', allowing the French-raised Dayan to delve into ideas of femininity and Christianity. See how this artist came to be and why the word 'virgin' is such a loaded one.

HB: When did you fall in love with art, and when did you decide you wanted to be an artist?

RD: I grew up in south of France and my parents kind of raised me in a very – I mean they weren't artists, but they had a lot of artists around them and they would take me to the museums, places that just had a lot of history and art. I was always kind of raised around it and then I started drawing when I was a kid. Later on, I found all these textbooks of my mom's. She was drawing portraits of women and girls all over them. I wanted to imitate her and I thought she was drawing super photographically well. I guess I just wanted to do the same thing that she was doing. So that's what sparked it when I was a child.

When the moment came to choose something to study after high school, it was kind of logical for me to go to art school. So that's what I did, and then I studied fashion design and went into acting at the same time.

HB: Why is watercolor the medium you gravitated towards?

RD: It was kind of an accident, really. Before, I used to like working with graphite, and charcoal, and colored pencils the most, and I don't know, I had some watercolor around, and I just picked it up. I think I started using those colored crayons that you add water to it and they become watercolor. I wanted to do bigger scale stuff, and the medium allows for images to appear a little bit like fragile. I like water color because it's very feminine and it's almost not there. It's kind of like a stain a little bit. And the colors are very luminous. So that's why I like it the most. And it's easy to take everywhere with you, and you don't have to have a studio.

HB: Tell us about your subject matter for this show and using women you know.

RD: When the gallery first booked me, they asked 'What are you going to be working on?' and originally I didn't really know. At the time, I was reading this script for a movie that was going to be filmed in a convent. And I helped the writer/director rewrite my part—so I just did a lot of research on it.

There were all of these things about religion and I came across a lot of different things but mainly, the idea that sparked my curiosity is the meaning of the word 'virgin', which originally did not mean what we think of today. Before Christianity, it didn't have any sexual connotation. In Judaism, it just meant 'a woman who is not married.' And if you go back even before that, into polytheism, whether it's ancient Greece or Rome, all the goddesses were called virgins. It meant, 'a powerful woman' because it had nothing to do with sexuality or with being chaste.

It also comes from a time when sex was sacred, in the sense that it was celebrated for the good reason that it created life. And everything that was linked to that, especially women, women's vaginas and all of that, were celebrated. That all completely changed with growth of Christianity. Sex became taboo and impure and women had to hide all those things. So obviously I haven't done six years of research and I'm not trying to publish a theory, but it just sparked my interest and I thought it would be kind of an interesting thing to reclaim the meaning of this word, or just question it a little bit.

HB: How did you go about doing that?

RD: I asked all of these women, my friends, whom I think are strong, independent young women to pose—imitating poses that are classical depictions of the Virgin Mary. I took pictures of the poses and then I drew from those pictures. And that's why the show is called "Assumption." It's kind of a play on the word because of the assumption of the Virgin Mary and assumption as in assuming what something is or means.

HB: Did you grow up Catholic?

RD: Not at all. I didn't really grow up religious, but I was always interested in any kind of symbolism. The world that we live in is a symbolic world. And the origin of this symbol, the virgin, and the meaning in general is interesting to me.

HB: Working in this gallery seems like a unique experience where you're given free reign to spend a lot of time working on your art, as you also live in the space for a month. What has that been like for you?

RD: It's been one of the best learning experiences I've had for sure. One month can be a lot of time, but it's also quite short. So it doesn't leave you too much room for second-guessing, which is great I think, especially for someone like me who's constantly second-guessing everything. And you have to just follow your instincts, which is a great lesson. I spent the first week kind of trying out different techniques. I was trying to do something different, and then I went back to what I usually do, just because I was listening to people who were like, 'Oh you know, watercolor is not very well-regarded in the art world.'

I was just confused because I wanted to say something that was meaningful and then in the end, I was thinking, 'Okay, I'm going to do what I know how to do and what I like doing, and if people like it, great, and if they don't, well at least I would have had enjoyed myself.' I came to a conclusion very quickly that was just like, 'Okay f8ck with everybody. I'm going to do what I want to do.' It was obviously amazing to be in this space, living and working. I'm really bummed that it's over.

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